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Data Warehousing At Wal-Mart The Research Proposal

All of these factors combined to form the catalyst of the data warehouse project being made a higher priority than the many other competing projects within Wal-mart at the time. At a cost of approximately $3M in software and $9M in services and training, Wal-Mart partnered with Hewlett-Packard and became one of the first companies to adopt the HP Neoview data warehousing system. One of the key reasons for Wal-Mart choosing the HP Neoview data warehousing system was its high level of compatibility with their existing investments in the Teradata databases, which were used as the foundation of their Business Intelligence applications. Wal-Mart also wanted to create a more consistent integration platform to support their Retail Link system so that the RFID data could be used for calculating the ROI of partner investments in the technology.

Lastly, HP Neoview runs on the existing Tandem NonStop operating system and kernel platform to ensure the highest levels of performance possible. Despite the HP Neoview being a relatively new enterprise-level application for data warehousing, Wal-Mart evaluated the performance of 750 data marts that HP was managing with Neoview prior to formally launching the application for sale. The result of HP thoroughly testing Neoview internally helped to convince Wal-Mart the application was tested well enough to be used in the demanding data warehousing, RFID analysis and Retail Link integration.

Conclusion

The immediate need for integrating legacy data warehouses together led Wal-Mart to also consider Business Intelligence as a competitive advantage...

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For Wal-Mart, information is what makes their entire supply chain and retail operations work. Translating the many data inputs captured to the transaction level and seeing broader trends in the data has given Wal-Mart the ability to open 550 stores, on average, over the last two years each. Being able to define the optimal product mix for their SuperCenters before a grand opening to ensure the value shopper is attracted to the store and becomes loyal is also crucial for the success of the store itself, which must clear $179,000 per week to break even (Duff, 14). For Wal-Mart the bottom line is that the use of data warehouses significantly contributes to their ability to stay ahead of the trends and costs that influence of their business while being better aligned with customers' needs.
References

Mike Duff. "SUPERMARKETS & SUPERCENTERS: CAN THEY REALLY COEXIST? " Retailing Today 26 May 2008: 14. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 3 Jul. 2008

Paul Sheldon Foote, Malini Krishnamurthi. "Forecasting using data warehousing model: Wal-Mart's experience. " the Journal of Business Forecasting Methods & Systems 20.3 (2001): 13-17. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest.. 1 Jul. 2008

Heather Havenstein. "Wal-Mart Turns to HP for Data Warehouse Update. " Computerworld 6 Aug. 2007: 14. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 3 Jul. 2008

Jianfeng Wang. "ECONOMIES of it SYSTEMS at WAL-MART - an HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. " Academy of Information and Management Sciences Journal 9.1 (2006): 45-66. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 5…

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References

Mike Duff. "SUPERMARKETS & SUPERCENTERS: CAN THEY REALLY COEXIST? " Retailing Today 26 May 2008: 14. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 3 Jul. 2008

Paul Sheldon Foote, Malini Krishnamurthi. "Forecasting using data warehousing model: Wal-Mart's experience. " the Journal of Business Forecasting Methods & Systems 20.3 (2001): 13-17. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest.. 1 Jul. 2008

Heather Havenstein. "Wal-Mart Turns to HP for Data Warehouse Update. " Computerworld 6 Aug. 2007: 14. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 3 Jul. 2008

Jianfeng Wang. "ECONOMIES of it SYSTEMS at WAL-MART - an HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. " Academy of Information and Management Sciences Journal 9.1 (2006): 45-66. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 5 Jul. 2008
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